


The Temples are Falling

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Nuclear Fallout, So Is Riya, The OT3 Are Okay, Threesome - F/M/M, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis, bittersweet fic, bunker family, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 19:01:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15274188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: When time travel was invented, the rules were rewritten.Now, there are no rules at all.





	The Temples are Falling

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a song that was sung by a girl I knew. I don't remember any lyrics except for these, which have stuck with me and seemed appropriate:
> 
> "The temples are falling, but darling,  
> "Remember I'll always love you."
> 
> If you're worried about the Major Character Death, please check the end notes.

This was how it started.

It happened one morning when Denise came into the bunker, her family in tow behind her: her mother, Michelle, and the two kids.

Everyone stood up. Lucy had been on the couch with Flynn, Wyatt had been hovering awkwardly by the coffee maker, Mason was asleep, and Rufus and Jiya were eating cereal together at the table.

“What’s going on?” Rufus asked.

Denise looked Rufus in the eye. “You’re coming with me. Jiya can pilot.”

“Why?”

“To get your family.”

The alarm had gone off an hour later, while Rufus and Denise were still gone. Nobody had any idea what was happening. Michelle admitted that Denise hadn’t told her, just had said to gather up whatever was needed for an emergency and told her not to tell anyone where they were going.

“She told us to say we were going on a road trip,” Michelle admitted.

Wyatt knew something was wrong. They all did.

When they ran into Jess, he tried to tell her.

That was what he’d repeated later, over and over again: _I tried to tell her. I tried. I tried._

“Something’s wrong!” he’d shouted. “Don’t go home, Jess, come with us. I’ll wait behind, you guys can come back for me.”

She hadn’t listened.

When they’d gotten back, Rufus had been there.

So had his mom and brother.

“What is happening,” Flynn had demanded. “Christopher.”

Nobody had failed to notice how he’d instinctively reached for Lucy, the way she’d leaned her body towards him. Like they were bracing for impact.

Denise hadn’t even had time to explain.

All she’d said was, “It’s happened. The President pushed too far. The missiles are—”

Then the world above had exploded.

Flynn had dived under the table, yanking Lucy with him. Rufus had grabbed Jiya and his brother. Mason had yelped, banging his knee on the couch. Denise’s mom burst into tears and her son screamed.

Wyatt hadn’t made any sound at all.

This was how it started.

 

* * *

 

“The world above is uninhabitable,” Denise explained.

They all sat around the kitchen table.

Rufus sat between his mom and Jiya, holding their hands. Her mom had been in Lebanon. Nobody knew what countries were safe, who had been involved in the nuclear attacks, how much of Earth was now gone. His brother Kevin sat on the ground, tangled up in his brother’s legs. Apparently an old habit of his from when he was a kid, Rufus had said.

Regression, Lucy knew. Happened during trauma.

She knew it was selfish but she couldn’t stop thinking—there was no way to get Amy back now. And why should she bring her back?

Why bring her sister to Hell?

Mason sat quietly next to Jiya’s other side, his arm around her shoulders. “I have contacts,” he said. “I can search through them. See who made it out, anywhere in the world.”

“How long do we have to be down here?” Flynn asked.

Lucy circled around to take Wyatt’s shoulders, standing behind him.

He didn’t move.

Denise cleared her throat. “Five years.”

Everyone except for Wyatt and Lucy groaned.

“This bunker was built for this,” Denise reminded them. “It was built during the Cold War for exactly this kind of thing. And we can still use the Lifeboat to go through time and get more supplies like fresh water. We’re going to be fine.”

“Can’t we just hide out somewhere back in time?” Rufus asked.

“Not as fun as it sounds, trust me,” Jiya said.

“We could change too much. And how would we get back? How would we organize that when we only have four seats?” Denise replied.

She started dealing out chores, responsibilities.

About halfway through, Wyatt stood up. Lucy reached for him, her heart aching, knowing that despite whatever arguments they’d just had that nobody deserved—

He shrugged her off, and kept walking.

To Lucy’s surprise, Flynn stood up.

“I’ll talk to him,” he said quietly.

She couldn’t have said what made her reach out to take his hand and squeeze it. It just felt like the right thing to do.

Flynn looked surprised, his eyebrows raising, looking like he had back when she’d asking him in Chinatown, _why are you here_.

But he squeezed back, and then followed Wyatt.

Mason frowned. “What happened with him?”

Lucy finally sat down. “Jess,” she said wearily. “We ran into her on the last mission. He tried to get her to come with us.”

There was a long pause. Finally, Rufus said quietly to his mom, “Wyatt’s wife. Worked with Rittenhouse. She was… she was pregnant.”

Silence reigned.

Denise, always the mom, was the one who found the strength to break it. “Water conservation. We’ll have to make some ground rules…”

 

* * *

 

“Logan.”

Wyatt heard the accent, registered it, felt a hand on his shoulder—

He turned, swinging instinctively, full of rage and self-hatred and grief and _rage_ , wanting to hit something so that he’d be hit back.

Flynn blocked the blow with his forearm, catching Wyatt’s hands. “None of that.”

Wyatt tried to headbutt him. Flynn jumped back, squeezing tighter on his hands. “Wyatt. I’m not going to hit you.”

“Don’t even fucking try that with me.” Wyatt yanked his hands free—or maybe Flynn let him yank them free. “You tried that once, your whole we’re not so different routine, it didn’t fucking work, remember?”

“Who else are you going to talk to?” Flynn snapped. “If anyone knows what you've been through—"

"I don't need you—"

"Well who do you need? Huh? Lucy’s trying to be there for you, not like you deserve it after what you put her through—”

“What _I_ put her—”

“You chose your wife, you—by God Wyatt you got the fucking miracle that I’d been praying for, for _months_ , and you practically threw it away to try and keep Lucy as your fucking emotional sidepiece—”

“And you’re such a catch, you killed _how_ many people? You kidnapped her—”

“She told you to give her space and you—”

“I’m in love with her—”

“I’m in love with her too you idiot you think that excuses—”

“I can’t have her comforting me because I was in love with her and it meant I wasn’t emotionally with Jess and maybe if I had been she wouldn’t have gone to Rittenhouse and she’d have been _here_ and she’d be alive!”

“…what.”

“…what?”

Wyatt pointed at him. “Go back. What did you say? You’re in love with Lucy?”

“Like it’s a big fucking surprise,” Flynn snarled. Then his voice gentled. “Wyatt. For God’s sake. It’s not your fault. Jess made her choices.”

“She was carrying my child.” Wyatt didn’t even recognize his own voice. “Flynn. She was carrying my… and I was so shitty, I was—I messed it up and if I’d just…”

He realized that he couldn’t see Flynn properly anymore because he was crying and tears were blurring his vision. He tried to turn away, to keep the other man from seeing, but Flynn reached out, grabbing him.

Wyatt tried for a punch again but Flynn dodged, wrapping his arms around him.

“What the fuck is this.”

“It’s called a hug, Logan. You need one.”

“…you won’t… I don’t blame Lucy.” The words were said into Flynn’s shoulder. “It’s not her fault. It’s mine.”

“As long as you don’t push her away for it,” Flynn replied, “you can say or not say whatever you want to her.”

Wyatt stood there stiffly for a minute. But Flynn didn’t let up, and Wyatt finally, tentatively, wrapped his arms around Flynn’s shoulders.

“Don’t tell anyone about this.”

Wyatt could literally feel Flynn rolling his eyes. “Trust me, Wyatt, this isn’t something I want getting around either.”

 

* * *

 

Rufus and Denise adapted the best.

They were the ones who had their family with them, of course. Mason adapted surprisingly well. He bonded with Kevin and Denise’s kids, made Denise’s mom laugh with his outrageous stories, and got rather close with Jiya. If Rufus wasn’t with her, then it was Mason.

There was no word from Lebanon.

There was no word from anywhere, really.

Wyatt was taking it the worst. Flynn had figured that. Lucy wasn’t taking it well either.

It took a year for her to sleep with him.

She’d taken to sleeping in bed with him now that there was even less room than before. He never touched her, never reached out. Wanted it to be on Lucy’s terms.

It felt like every night, she got a little closer, until they were sleeping with limbs intertwined, her head on his chest. She felt impossibly small and fragile in his arms.

He kept panicking that she could feel his rapid heartbeat, that she would know what she did to him. How he’d cross the oceans for her, the scorching desert for her, do anything she asked and more.

She and Wyatt kept avoiding each other around the bunker, skittering around like rats. Flynn didn’t know how to fix it. Wyatt would avoid him, too, but in a different way, like he’d shown Flynn too much and didn’t know what to do with that.

Sometimes he wanted to shove Wyatt into a wall and slap some sense into him.

Sometimes he looked at Wyatt’s twitching fingers, his restless roaming eyes, his five o’clock shadow, and want to do other things.

But that had always been there. It was easy enough to ignore.

He had thought that all this meant that Lucy still loved Wyatt. That Flynn was just… a close friend. Family, maybe. The only comfort she could get.

And maybe she was still in love with Wyatt. He didn’t know. But on the night she slid into bed and wiggled up to him and kissed his chest…

He couldn’t have denied her, even if he’d wanted to.

And he didn’t want to.

“Lucy.” His voice was hoarse.

She hummed, kissing slowly up his chest, until her mouth was right at his. He lay still, not daring to move. Not wanting to mess this up.

“Garcia,” she whispered. “The world’s ended. You gonna kiss me or what?”

He kissed her, swallowed the broken sound of relief she made. Flipped her over and swallowed her moans, relearned her body with his mouth, licked his way into the deepest part of her.

He took his time, both because as much as he wanted to make her scream that was unfortunate given their current living situation and because he wanted to learn her properly, wanted to know exactly how to touch her, where to suck, if she liked it when he bit (she did).

Her fingers were impossibly tight in his hair, her legs trembling, her chest heaving as she inhaled around the fist she’d shoved into her mouth to keep herself quiet.

She was so, so fucking beautiful.

The best part, though, was probably when she’d climbed on top of him afterwards and had giggled while they’d rearranged themselves, taking him inside of her, smiling down at him with her bottom lip caught between her teeth. That was when he realized—oh. She wanted _him_.

He wasn’t a replacement.

After that, there wasn’t really a night where they didn’t do at least something before going to bed.

 

* * *

 

She hated being in this stupid sardine can.

She’d hated it before and she hated it even more now.

They went out in the Lifeboat from time to time, everyone taking turns. They’d stretch their legs and get fresh air.

It made time traveling fun, for once. There was no Rittenhouse to fight. If anyone had made it, they were underground, giving no sign.

Now that they were just doing it for their own mental health, they could finally explore.

It was on a trip to the Chicago World’s Fair—for fun, this time, carefully avoiding the day that they’d been there before—that she finally cornered Wyatt.

He’d been avoiding her ever since the world went up in flames.

“You want to tell me why you’re angry with me?” she asked.

Wyatt’s eyes darted around, like he was looking for an escape route or a distraction. “I’m not angry with you.”

“Bullshit.” She took a step towards him. “You won’t look me in the eye, you haven’t touched me, you won’t even really _talk_ to me—it’s like—is Jess’s death my fault? Is that what you think?”

“No!” Wyatt blurted out, so loudly that people turned their heads.

He grabbed her arm, looking around them. “C’mon.”

He all but dragged her to the Lifeboat, left in an out of the way spot in the nearby woods. “I don’t—if Jess’s death is anyone’s fault, it’s mine, okay? It’s not you.”

Lucy stared at him. Stared at the haggard lines on his face, the perpetual scruff he’d developed, the empty chasm in his eyes. “Wyatt…”

She stepped forward, pulling him into her arms. “You have to stop taking choices away from people. Away from Jess, away from me. We make our own choices and so do you. It’s not all on you.”

His hands tentatively came up to wrap around her. “I was taught,” he started, voice hoarse, “to… take care of… of the people I loved. That I should—I don’t know. Make the decisions.” He laughed, harshly. “Be a man.”

“Jess made her choice,” Lucy said, the words bursting out of her fierce and harsh. “I made my choice. You can’t carry us on your shoulders, Wyatt. You can’t carry anyone on your shoulders besides yourself.”

“I should’ve been better,” he admitted, and she couldn’t see his face but she could feel the wetness soaking into her dress. “I should’ve—Lucy I should have—”

“No. You did the best you could, okay? We all make mistakes, we all screw up. You have to let it go.”

“But—”

“There aren’t any rules anymore, Wyatt.” She squeezed him tighter. “There are no rules. Stop defining yourself and everyone else by them. And don’t you dare disrespect Jess by thinking that choice was anyone’s to make but hers. She wouldn’t want that. The Jess you loved wouldn’t want that. She’d want you to remember she was her own person.”

Wyatt didn’t say anything more after that, just kept clinging to her.

But he started to look her in the eye again. And he stopped avoiding her.

 

* * *

 

Growing up, Wyatt had quickly learned, there were rules.

Rules about right and wrong, good and bad, true and false.

The problem was, those rules contradicted each other.

Be a player and get every girl you could… but be loyal.

Be honorable… but aggressive and violent.

Take care of your family… but your desires were the only thing that mattered.

Some, though, were ironclad.

_Don't be a fucking faggot._

Now, though.

Now there were no rules.

Rules were obliterated along with the buildings and the people who’d lived in them. Rules were destroyed with the life and ego of the selfish men who’d dragged everyone else down with them. What rules remained were simple: share what you could, help each other, we survive together or die alone.

There were no rules, he told himself.

So when his eyes drifted to Flynn’s hands, the way they still drifted to Lucy’s mouth, what did it matter? There were no rules.

If sometimes the body he felt above him in his dreams was heaver, taller, rough stubble against his cheek instead of soft breasts, who did he have to tell? There were no rules.

And if he sometimes looked at Lucy in Flynn’s lap on the couch, their dark hair blending as they bent their heads together, if he wanted to join them, wanted to press into them until he was another part of their whole…

The only thing that mattered was the ache in his chest.

Because there were no rules.

 

* * *

 

Two years into it, Rufus and Jiya got married.

Denise recorded it in the book she carried around, for posterity. Mason stood up and said a few words, as did Rufus’s mom.

Flynn helped Denise’s mom to cook. They’d built up a kind of quiet friendship through their cooking, not really talking much but silently working together, smiling occasionally.

Rufus and Jiya exchanged vows, and rings that they’d picked up on a trip.

And that was that.

Flynn watched it all with a soft smile on his face. He could remember so clearly when he and Lorena had gotten married. He’d been terrified. Worried that she’d change her mind and realize she could do so much better. Worried that he’d drop the ring. Worried he’d forget his vows.

It was the best day of his life, barring the day that Iris was born.

He glanced over at Lucy, at her shining eyes as she stared at her two friends. He hadn’t told her how he felt, although he was pretty sure that she could guess. She hadn’t said anything, either.

Sometimes he saw her looking at Wyatt, and got a sinking feeling in his chest, but he had no right to complain about it. After all, he kept looking at Wyatt, too.

He saw Wyatt looking at Lucy from time to time. More as time went on and they patched up the rift between them.

Sometimes he couldn’t help but wonder…

But no. This might be the apocalypse but there were some things it was still stupid to let himself think about.

 

* * *

 

The third year, she told Flynn the truth.

Jiya was pregnant, and Wyatt was doing a horrible job of hiding his distress about it. Lucy lay in bed with Flynn, knowing that Wyatt wasn’t sleeping, and wishing like anything that she could invite him to join them.

“Garcia?”

“Hmm?”

She shifted so that her fingers could find his face in the darkness. It felt at this point like she knew his body better than she knew her own. “What if I told you that I…” she swallowed, her throat clicking dryly. “That I love you?”

Flynn went stock still underneath her. The only sign of life was the breath puffing against her fingertips.

“I do.” She hated how her voice wavered. “I… I love you.” She could feel his heart pounding in his chest, underneath her ear. “But I… I never said anything.”

“Why?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, even though it was pitch black. “Because I never stopped loving Wyatt. Even when I was furious with him.”

There was a long, long pause. So long she worried that she should get up and leave, or that Flynn would get up and leave. Had she misread all of this? He loved her, didn’t he? Was he angrier than she had expected?

“Say something,” she begged at last. It felt like she was coming apart, molecule by molecule, even as the walls of the room closed in around her.

“Lucy.” Flynn sounded fondly exasperated. “Lucy, I—I’ve been in love with you since—since before I had any right to be.”

It felt like someone was squeezing her heart into a vice.

“And if you… wanted to… that is…”

She found herself, impossibly, smiling. “Garcia Flynn. Are you nervous?”

She could feel him playfully glaring at her. “If you wanted to approach Wyatt, I’d… I wouldn’t object.”

Lucy sat straight up in bed. “Are you attracted to him?”

“You know I’m bi.”

“Yes but—you never said—”

“Why would I? I thought I—because you never, and I didn’t want to… I love you. I _could_ love him, but I _do_ love you. I’m not going to say or do anything to mess that up.”

She settled back down onto him, her head tucked underneath his chin. “I’m sorry I made you doubt me. I love you.”

He didn’t say anything, but his arms wrapped around her.

He held her all night.

 

* * *

 

Jiya was five months pregnant when Denise’s mother fell ill.

They did what they could, but they didn’t know how to cross onto their own timelines very well. They’d just barely managed it with Rufus and they still had weird double-memories to deal with. And their future selves had gone. Rufus, Jiya, and Mason had yet to perfect the technology that would take them back and the medicine they got from further back in time wasn’t enough.

They buried her in India, her homeland, on the land that would, one day, hold the house in which she would be born and raised.

Denise didn’t really talk to anyone for a week. Flynn and Mason kind of took over things.

When Jiya felt her water break, she threw a fit about giving birth inside the bunker.

“I want my child to feel the fresh air, dammit!” she cursed, even as her legs shook with pain and beads of sweat popped out on her forehead. “I’m not having it born in a fucking concrete tomb!”

Rufus swore later that she gripped his hand so tightly she rearranged the bones. Mason had her other hand, reminding her to breathe, as Michelle caught the baby.

“It’s a boy,” she said.

“The gender binary is a social construct,” Jiya informed her, and then passed out.

 

* * *

 

One benefit to living in a small bunker with several other people, four of whom had been parents before: lots of capable babysitters.

Flynn, Michelle, Denise, and Rufus’s Mom all rotated helping out the new parents. Although it usually took bribery to pry little Farez Connor Carlin out of Rufus’s arms.

He’d been named after Jiya’s father, and of course after Mason.

When Mason had heard, he’d burst into tears, to his shock as well as everyone else’s.

Wyatt watched Flynn as he walked Farez up and down, shushing him. It was so late it was early. Jiya was passed out after nursing, Rufus had literally fallen asleep in the middle of his fifth cup of coffee, and everyone else was in bed.

Farez adored his parents and his Uncle Kevin was his favorite, but nobody could get him to quiet the way that Flynn could when he was fussy at night.

Wyatt just lay on the couch, wondering how the hell Flynn had the patience to walk up and down like that, over and over again.

“You want to hold him?” Flynn asked.

Lucy’s face had lit up when she’d first held the baby, and something in Wyatt’s throat had tightened until it felt like he was being strangled.

She would sing the baby lullabies, too. “Lullaby, and goodnight, let roses be nigh. With lilies overspread, their pillow, thy head. Lay you down, now to rest, may your slumber be blessed. Lay you down, now to rest, may your slumber be blessed.”

“That song makes no sense,” he’d told her once.

“A baby cannot be raised on Bing Crosby alone,” Lucy had replied. Then she’d added, quietly, “My dad would sing that to me. I never knew what it was from.”

He hadn’t ever held the baby before. Lucy and Mason had been named godparents.

Flynn walked over to him, sitting down on the couch with him. “Here. He won’t bite.”

Wyatt wanted to protest, but then it was too late and the baby was in his arms, staring up at him with big dark eyes exactly like Jiya’s.

“Support the head,” Flynn reminded him.

Wyatt stared down at this tiny bundle. _How did you make it,_ he thought. _How did you come alive when the world is dead?_

“Iris would be ten by now,” Flynn observed quietly.

Wyatt’s head shot up to stare at him.

Flynn shrugged. “You were thinking about how old yours would be.”

It was true. His baby would be almost three years old by now.

“I wanted it to have Jess’s nose,” he confessed. “I’d always loved her nose. Thought it was cute as fuck.”

Flynn didn’t say anything, but he shifted until his arm was around Wyatt’s shoulders. Wyatt leaned into him, almost without thinking, and then it would have been too awkward if he’d tried to shift back.

He didn’t even realize he was asleep until he felt Rufus taking the baby from him. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“You’re doing great,” Rufus told him, glancing between him and Flynn. His expression was an odd one of knowing amusement.

Wyatt realized that he and Flynn were basically cuddling now, Wyatt curled up into his side, his head on Flynn’s shoulder. But he was too tired to deal with it so he just fell back asleep.

It wasn’t until morning that he realized he’d seen the expression on Rufus’s face before.

It had been back before he and Lucy slept together the first time, when Rufus had told him to tell Lucy that he loved her.

 

* * *

 

 

They all did what they could to keep busy. Lucy was recording as much of history as she could remember, writing it all down, adding it to the history books they had on hand. Flynn worked with Denise as they wrote down her mom's recipes bit by bit, reconstructing them from memory. Wyatt taught everyone how to handle guns. Jiya taught everyone how to computer code.

Lucy pushed herself the hardest. Scribbling all over journals. Burning the midnight electric lamp. Working until her fingers cramped and her eyes ached.

"We can't repeat our mistakes," she would mutter. "We can't, we can't, there might be others and we have to rebuild and somebody has to remember, somebody  _has_ to remember."

She told the truth about time travel, about how history had been and how it had changed. She sketched people's faces: Josephine, Harriet, Robert Todd, all of them.  _Remember_ , written in the margins, the very edges, of the journals, and in the history books.  _Remember how it was. How it is. How it shouldn't be._

"What right do we have to live?" she asked. "If we don't become better?"

 

* * *

 

The baby was teething, Denise and her daughter were in the middle of a horrendous argument, Mason was one of in his ‘I hate everyone’ moods, Kevin and Denise’s son had done _something_ and were now avoiding each other (Flynn had put money on handjobs, Rufus had said to get over himself and it was probably just making out), and Jiya and her mother-in-law were not speaking to each other because of a disagreement over religion.

Nobody was getting any sleep.

Michelle suggested a movie night to help everyone try and relax, and that was Lucy’s only explanation for how she ended up the last one in the living room with Wyatt as everyone stumbled to bed.

She didn’t even mean to do it. It was just that it was almost four years now, and she had wanted for so long, and she was so tired of wanting, and she had a feeling that Wyatt was tired of wanting too.

So she just took his hand and started leading him to the bedroom she shared with Flynn.

Wyatt stumbled to a halt. “Whoa. Lucy. What—”

She turned.

They stood there in the hallway for a moment, staring at each other. There was this aching pit in Wyatt’s eyes, like he was starving and being offered bread but wasn’t sure if he was allowed to take it.

Lucy sighed. The world had ended, for fuck’s sake.

“Come to bed, Wyatt.”

Maybe there was some kind of conviction in her voice that convinced him, but when she took his hand this time, he didn’t resist her.

Flynn raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw Wyatt trail in behind her, but he didn’t say anything. He just crossed over and wrapped an arm around Wyatt’s waist. Wyatt tipped forward, like he was finally giving into exhaustion, and just rested against Flynn’s chest.

They all breathed together like that for a moment.

“You deserve this,” Flynn told him, pulling back and pressing his palm to Wyatt’s cheek. “You deserve us.”

Wyatt looked at him, and looked at him, and looked at him.

And then nodded.

Lucy heard someone make a kind of odd, almost sobbing noise, and then realized that she had made it. Almost before she could blink Flynn was gathering her up into his arms, and gently pushing her halfway to Wyatt, putting her in the middle.

Wyatt slowly wrapped his arms around her as well, tangling his limbs up with Flynn, his chin resting on her head.

Lucy clung to them both and cried.

 

* * *

 

It took another few months for him to let Flynn fuck him.

They worked up to it. Kissing he got the hang of pretty damn quickly. He found he liked crawling into Flynn’s lap, tilting his head to the side, silently asking. And Flynn always gave, kissing him slowly, dragging his tongue inside Wyatt’s mouth until Wyatt felt like all of his bones had melted away.

He and Lucy fucked. And he watched Flynn fuck her. Teaming up to do things to her, one of them holding her while the other fingered her or ate her out, that came pretty easily too. Worshipping Lucy had always come easily.

No puns intended.

The day Flynn slid a hand inside his pants, gripping his cock, Wyatt had jerked hard and nearly come on the spot. He’d been so embarrassed he’d hidden in the Lifeboat and Lucy had to coax him out.

He learned how to give a blow job, learned to love the feeling of Flynn’s hand heavy in his hair, Flynn’s cock stretching his mouth wide, the weight of it on his tongue. He learned to trust Flynn to touch him all over, to let Flynn’s body pin him down, to grind their cocks together until he came, Flynn’s teeth in his neck.

He learned to fall asleep inside the curve of Flynn’s body, Lucy draped over Flynn’s chest, a fistful of Wyatt’s shirt in her hand like he might escape in the night.

The beds were still damn small, okay?

He let Flynn’s fingers inside of him first. Let Flynn slowly take him apart until Wyatt was grasping at him and spreading his legs for more and finally understanding why guys actually liked taking it up the ass because _holy shit_. Took a while to work up to Flynn’s cock, though, his mind instinctively going into panic mode worrying that he’d tear something.

After that… well, Lucy had taken to fondly calling him a cockslut but he was also just as eager to fuck her, and who was the one demanding to be fucked by both him and Flynn in one night, huh?

They didn’t tell anyone about what was going on, but then they didn’t have to. In a small space like this with nobody else around… everyone knew at once.

Everyone had probably known before Wyatt did.

For the first time since the world ended, he was beginning to feel happy again.

 

* * *

 

Towards the end of the fifth year, it was elected that Denise go up and look.

Everyone had argued that they should be the one to check. That the others weren’t expendable, but they were.

In the end, Denise had put her foot down.

Flynn could feel that itch deep in his chest as he watched her slowly open the door and ascend. Wyatt’s depression—because that was what it was, if you asked Flynn—had gotten significantly better after he and Lucy had taken Wyatt to bed and basically not let him out again, but Flynn knew that seeing the sun again, and not just when they went back in time, would do Wyatt loads of good.

Lucy, too, her claustrophobia was a constant thing now. Lowkey, but she often broke out in a sweat and needed to curl up with him or Wyatt, letting them hold her until the shaking subsided and she stopped staring blankly into empty space.

Jiya wanted the baby to see sunshine, since they weren’t risking taking him in the Lifeboat at such a young age. Everyone was a little stir crazy.

They waited, breaths held, as Denise disappeared.

Next to him, Wyatt reached out and gripped Flynn’s hand tight. Lucy was standing on Flynn’s other side, her arms around his torso, her head tipped against his chest. She was practically vibrating.

Denise stepped back down. Her left hand was in a fist. She opened it.

Inside was a small flower.

Her smile said it all.

 

* * *

 

It was three months after they emerged from the bunker that Mason, Jiya, and Rufus figured out how to travel on your own timeline.

Lucy’s hair had been cut by then, a hack job that she was still self-conscious about. Flynn had been teasing Wyatt for weeks about his beard but Wyatt insisted on it “for the time continuum.”

They had to keep reminding him that they were not going back in time so that he could bitch slap his past self.

There was a lot to do. The world around them was still mostly barren. There were no signs of people. Patches of rough desert dotted the landscape.

But there was life. There was a chance.

Lucy knew where she truly wanted to go first. Who she really wanted to find a way to bring back. And she knew she had to go to São Paulo, too.

But first, there was another stop to make. They had promised themselves they would save him, and they would.

Lucy smirked as they re-entered the Lifeboat after helping their past selves. Wyatt immediately grabbed the razor and bottle of water that he’d brought.

“You’re a stubborn idiot, you know that, right?” she asked.

“That makes two of us,” he replied.

They paused, Wyatt quietly shaving. She knew he was thinking the same thing that she was.

“Should we have told them?” she asked. “About what’s coming?”

The whole group had talked and already made the decision not to. That it was changing too much. That there wasn’t much that foreknowledge could change.

Except.

Knowing sooner…

Wyatt knew her by now well enough to hear what she wasn’t saying. Lucy could tell that he understood by the way he had to pause, his hand shaking a little.

Then it steadied.

“Knowing sooner wouldn’t have changed her opinion, I think,” he said. “Jess made her choice and I have to respect that.”

He looked up at her, his eyes blue and bright. “And I made mine.”

The dove through time, speeding through a world on fire. Dodging the falling temples of man’s glory.

But when they landed, there was Jiya laughing at something Mason had said. Rufus trying to get Farez to walk. The three teenagers—not teenagers anymore, young adults—were upstairs outside the bunker, lying on the grass, cloud gazing. Michelle and Denise were discussing plans for the winter.

And there was Flynn, standing at the bottom of the steps, smiling softly at them.

“Did you have a good trip?” he asked.

Lucy jumped, knowing he’d catch her, knowing he’d spin her around and set her gently on her feet. “Rufus is still here. I’d say it’s a success.”

Wyatt sauntered down the steps, grinning as he watched Flynn realize he’d shaved, laughing into the fierce kiss that Flynn gave him.

Lucy slid her hand over her stomach.

This was how it started.

**Author's Note:**

> Jessica Logan dies in the nuclear war, along with her and Wyatt's unborn child.


End file.
